


Spaces in Togetherness

by demonessryu



Category: The Old Guard (Movie 2020)
Genre: Established Relationship, Joe waxing poetic about Nicky should be a tag because that's what's happening here, M/M, Post-Canon, Reunions, Separations, Temporary Long Distance Relationship
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-09
Updated: 2020-09-09
Packaged: 2021-03-06 14:55:06
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,967
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26360752
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/demonessryu/pseuds/demonessryu
Summary: As hard as it was to believe, Joe and Nicky weren't always together.
Relationships: Joe | Yusuf Al-Kaysani/Nicky | Nicolò di Genova
Comments: 14
Kudos: 166





	Spaces in Togetherness

**Author's Note:**

> Title loosely taken from Kahlil Gibran’s The Prophet (“But let there be spaces in your togetherness.”) This fic contains references to a famous Arabic folklore, [Layla and Majnun](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Layla_and_Majnun), which is basically Romeo and Juliet minus murder and suicide, but still with the sad ending.

It took a couple of months before restlessness started to crawl under Nicky’s skin, and for that, Joe was grateful. By then Andy had relearnt the limits of her returning mortality, Nile had become surer of her place among them, and Joe had adjusted to the new arrangement of his strange family. Nicky himself had also adapted to the changing dynamics brought by perviousness and newness, finding the delicate balance between too protective and not protective enough with ease that made Joe adored him a little more. However, adaptation didn’t equal to contentment. After a while, Joe noticed Nicky gazing into the distance, reading books and watching movies of places far away, tracing invisible lines over map stretched out under lamplight in the dead of night. Joe never asked. Nicky didn’t have to explain himself. Joe just turned to his sketches whenever Nicky decided to follow his curiosity and then opened his arms whenever Nicky decided to join him in their bed. They knew already what was coming and both of them were content to wait for its inevitability.

Joe knew the time had come when Nicky took Nile aside and the two huddled together in front of a laptop in a corner of their safehouse. Joe didn’t ask what they talked about and smilingly helped Nicky packed when Nicky got out his tattered old suitcase. The next afternoon, Nicky grabbed the suitcase, then gave Joe a lingering embrace and kiss. There was a customary pause of hesitation – both of them always reluctant to let go of each other – but Nicky then made his choice between the pulls of familiarity and novelty, and Joe let him go with one final kiss (not goodbye. Never goodbye. It just meant come back to me when you’re ready). Nicky hugged Andy and Nile and then he was out of the door and into the world. Joe stood by the window, watching his taxi until it disappeared from view and stifling the natural urge to follow (to the end of the earth, to the border of every country in the world, to the final end that he hoped wouldn’t come yet because he hadn’t had and wouldn’t have enough of love). Then, he took a deep breath and installed himself in front of the TV, waiting for a football match to start.

Andy was used to this and returned to her training as if she didn’t notice Nicky’s absence. Booker wouldn’t have said anything, but Joe still tried not to think too much of him – that path only led to reignited embers of anger and there was no Nicky to put it out here. Nile, however, was new in more ways than one. Joe forgot it sometimes as they all focused on battle trainings and stories of pieces of history they had partake in. But, yes, Nile was new. She didn’t understand yet the subtlety of two lives in a relationship that spanned centuries, a union of two gifted cursed souls entwined. He was reminded of this when she sat down beside him as Andy decided to explore the nightlife, leaving the two of them in each other’s company and giving Nile the opportunity to ask a question too private to be answered in others’ presence (not that Joe and Nicky tried very hard to keep their romance private, but Nile was new in this, too.)

“I’m surprised you’re not going with Nicky,” she started.

Joe looked up from his sketch of a football player suspended midair as he jumped over an opponent, sharp eyes fixed on the black and white ball rolling before him. He shook his head. “He wants to be alone.”

Nile hesitated. “Is everything okay? You two are usually inseparable,” she asked carefully.

“Ah.” Joe smiled in understanding. “Yes, everything is okay. Occasionally, we need to get away from each other.” He chuckled. “I drive Nicky crazy sometimes.”

“But.” Nile frowned.

“People do say absence makes the heart grow fonder,” he joked, grinning.

Nile rolled her eyes at him. “If it were anyone else, I’d understand, but you and Nicky…” Nile trailed off.

Joe could see confusion in her eyes, hear it in her voice. He’d seen and heard it in othersbefore, sometimes tinged with hate and prejudice and others colored purely by incomprehension. Of all the people he had encountered in the centuries he had lived through, only Andy had ever came close to understanding, although her view was later affected by the loss of Quynh. As far as Joe knew, Nile had never been in any significant long-term relationship and even if she had been, it couldn’t have come close to what was between Nicky and him. Joe was quite proud of that, of knowing that what he had with Nicky was something truly special that no one else knew, that he could give Nicky something no one else ever could or had. If Nicky were here, he would give the look on Joe’s face a fond but exasperated smile, but he wasn’t here and Nile didn’t understand the meaning of the smile quirking the ends of Joe’s lips.

“I asked Nicky why you’re not going with him, what you’ll think of him going alone, how you two are going to keep in touch, but he just said you’ll understand,” Nile continued with an edge of frustration in her voice, hinting how she had mulled over this question before she came to him.

Joe closed his sketchbook and put it aside to give the topic (Nicky) the attention it deserved (wholly and completely.) “Nicky and me have been together for longer than empires and countries had lasted. We’ve grown together, changed together, remained the same together. We’ve been at each other side much longer than we’ve been apart. I know Nicky as I know myself. I know that right now he’s at the airport, marveling how people could be so unchanged and yet different across place and time. I know he’s impatient for the journey ahead of him and the experiences he will learn. I also know that he is eager to grow unrestricted by my influence. I know him, but I’m not him. We are together, but we are separate people. I love having Nicky near me. I love when I only need to turn to see him, be quiet to hear him, reach out to touch him. I love seeing him sleeping peacefully in our bed, waking up to him in my arms, showing and telling him how much more he means for me every day, and knowing he is safe and happy by my side. But, because I love him, I won’t hold him back. I won’t chain him to my side.”

Nile blinked. “Oh, wow.”

“This is where Nicky would call me a romantic,” Joe laughed.

“He’d be right about that,” Nile commented, still looking a little taken aback.

As Joe considered whether he should tell Nile that this was also where Nicky would kiss him with a passion that only seemed to grow hotter with every century they spent together, a loud chime came from Joe’s phone on the table in front of him. He and Nile looked as the screen lighted up with a new notification. It was a message from Nicky, brief yet perfectly conveyed his excitement. _Delayed but there are so many interesting people here!_ Joe grinned as Nile murmured a heartfelt “what the fuck.”

It wasn’t exactly a hardship to be without Nicky. Joe quickly adjusted, although the kind of care Nicky usually provided didn’t come naturally to Joe. Andy was used to being in survival mode, subsisting only on the necessary. It was a habit that always had Nicky concerned, especially now that her body couldn’t instantly recover from the ordeals she put it through. Meanwhile, Nile was tough, but not so tough that she didn’t need any creature comfort. She was born in an age easier than their times and it was apparent to her friends. Joe was by no means an expert in caretaking, but he did his best to ensure their wellbeing. He didn’t do as well as Nicky did in the kitchen, but Andy and Nile never complained about the occasional take outs when he declared himself defeated by culinary mysteries. Making sure that Andy remembered to take care of herself was as challenging as keeping up with Nile’s world, although Joe liked to think that in this matter he did better than in the kitchen. And whenever he was drained by the care he provided, he only needed to look at Nicky’s messages to cheer himself up.

Nicky left a trail of crumbs behind him in the forms of sparse messages and pictures. From them, Joe could hazard a rough route zigzagging across Europe seemingly without aim, though he could tell Nicky’s destination by the third message he sent. He made no mention of it, though, just enjoying the unpredictable bursts of communication. Some pictures Joe recognized: roads they had taken together side by side or hand in hand, a repurposed tavern where they had often gotten drunk to give themselves reason to hold on to each other as they staggered home, a once new building Joe had spent days sketching while Nicky charmed the locals with homemade cooking, a park where there had once been a humble house they had daringly called home. But other pictures and texts, Joe didn’t know about. They were commentaries of places Nicky saw, arts he admired, people he observed, nature he adored. These were new and Joe didn’t yet know where to put them among his hoard of memories, but he was sure he would find them a place. They were hints, previews of the man Joe would welcome home, and Joe couldn’t wait to get to know all about him.

Joe said little in return, saving his stories for when Nicky was back to him. He did send sketches of Andy and Nile training, Andy with a book on her lap and a knife or gun in her hand, Nile smiling over something on her phone, the view from their bedroom window at dusk and dawn. Some private sketches Joe didn’t send. They were of Nicky, drawn purely from memory. There were Nicky standing in front of the stove with a small smile on his face, Nicky polishing his broadsword with ravishing diligence, Nicky with his head bent in a silent prayer, Nicky stretching naked in a nest of rumpled sheets, Nicky with his eyes closed in peaceful sleep, Nicky smiling that smile no one but Joe ever received, Nicky, Nicky, Nicky. Joe carefully stored those sketches along with uncountable others he had collected over the centuries. He would show them to Nicky in person, let him see how much Joe thought of him in his absence. Nicky knew that already, of course, but a little reminder never hurt and the kisses Joe got for it were always a pleasure. When Nicky’s messages petered off to nothing, Joe understood. He caressed the bold letters indicating Genoa’s location on the map and smiled, leaving Nicky to walk down a private memory of a life before they were together.

These days without Nicky made Joe more sympathetic to Majnun’s yearning. Joe hadn’t gone mad (yet) like him, but he spent more time expressing his longing and anxieties to the silent divine audience. Andy no longer believed in a higher power, but Joe had reconciled himself to the difference between the faith he lived and the teachings some said he should believe. It calmed him and gave Joe something to do, too, as it had been a long time since he slept well alone. He tossed and turned in his too-cold and too-empty bed for hours before falling asleep out of exhaustion. Some nights, he fell asleep in front of the TV, then woke up with a blanket over him, warm and safe but with a gaping hole in his heart where Nicky belonged. When Nicky’s messages returned, Joe caressed the digital letters, imagining them tumbling out of Nicky’s mouth, spoken in a voice that accompanied dreams of pleasanter times of peace and togetherness. Longing coursed through Joe’s skin and veins, flesh and bones, like a fever. Joe could definitely see why Majnun was driven to obsession – there was always a little madness in love and a lot of torture in separation from the beloved. But, Joe’s Layla wasn’t forcibly taken away from him – Nicky had left and would return on his own terms – and Joe wasn’t an inexperienced lover abhorring any notion of separation. He didn’t love it, but centuries of being hardly apart had taught him – sometimes painstakingly – how to enjoy the rare space on his own.

Joe studied the world map and recounted the places he and Nicky had explored and loved. They had been everywhere it seemed, but the world was ever changing. What had once been familiar was now strange. Even places they had been only months or even weeks earlier were now different. Humanity moved at a faster pace than they had ever been and they would move faster still. Joe looked at the vast expanse of land he used to call home, a place he used to know like the back of his hand and was now divided by invisible lines. He looked at the cities his trade had taken him to, the markets and vibrant lives that were now gone and forgotten. He thought of the places he had heard of but never had the opportunity to visit, as well as places he and Nicky had visited but had now probably changed beyond recognition. He thought of the civilizations he had seen grow and fall and those he had never learned. Joe asked Nile to show him how to look up the places and their histories on the internet, but texts and pictures could only do so much to satisfy him. Curiosity called to Joe as it had called to Nicky. There was a longing to walk familiar and unfamiliar roads, explore the brand new world, test the flexibility of his mind and soul, see how much and how far he could change and grow. The first seed of the wanderlust had been planted inside Joe and he could feel it begin to take root. Eventually, it would become strong and impossible to deny, but for now it was small and miniscule, barely perceptible and mostly ignorable. Joe kept it quiet. One day, it would be his time to go, but for now he stayed and dedicated himself to Andy and Nile, and looked forward to Nicky’s return.

A couple of weeks later, Nicky sent a message, short but no less loving for its content: _I’m coming home_. Joe smiled at it so widely and brightly Nile teased him all night. There was a period of silence as Nicky crossed land and seas (to come home. To return to Joe,) then one afternoon not so different from the afternoon he had left, Nicky was back, stepping through the threshold and retaking his vacant place in their lives in one fleeting breath. Andy greeted him with a warm hug and Nile followed suit. A few steps behind them, Joe observed in silence as a chasm in his heart that echoed Nicky’s name closed with a long exhalation that felt like he had withheld for too long. Joe had adapted but was still disoriented without Nicky, but now Nicky had returned and restored Joe’s tilting mental equilibrium. The world was more confusing today than it had been yesterday, but Joe wasn’t so lost now that Nicky was back to him to stand beside him, love him, share lives with him, as they tried to makes sense of and find a place in a time that was increasingly not where they belonged.

This wasn’t the first time this had happened, but as with everything else about Joe’s beloved, each time was as thrilling as the first. Joe smiled wide, almost giddy with the excitement, as Nicky approached him with a look on his reminiscent of the first time they acknowledged the growing affection between them. However, something in Nicky’s eyes was different. Nicky wasn’t the man Yusuf had fallen for centuries ago nor the man Joe had bid farewell months before. He now stood before Joe a changed man, but not so changed that he was an unrecognizable stranger, just more refined, his flaws filed out and his strengths enhanced. Joe must get to know him all over again (and what a joy it would be to chart again Nicky’s mind, to relearn the twists and turns of his character, to explore the origins and spans of new habits, to see in what new ways their lives would entwine!) yet already Joe fell completely and hopelessly in love with him.

Joe cupped Nicky’s cheeks and drew him into a slow gentle kiss that lasted not enough breathless seconds. “Welcome home, Nicolo,” he said as he pulled away a fraction from the forever love of his life.

“I’m home, Yusuf,” Nicky replied, gently squeezing Joe’s waist.

Distantly, Joe heard Andy announced that she and Nile would go out. His smile turned into a roguish grin as Andy slammed the front door behind them. He slung his arm around Nicky’s shoulders and steered him toward their room. “Let me show you how much I've missed you,” he declared. Joe laughed when Nicky complied easily, a promise of pleasure in every shift of his muscles and every breath that touched Joe. They barely made it into the room before they lost to the demands of near desperate yearning borne by separation. Good thing Andy got Nile left the house to them because Joe and Nicky’s reunions tended to be very noisy and long.

**Author's Note:**

> Joe has unleashed the purple prose monster inside me. Send help.
> 
> I can be found on [tumblr](http://demonessryu.tumblr.com/).


End file.
